White Gold

Read Authors notes first please.


God blew the south wind,
and created the horse.
My reason to be.


Character Sheet
Main
Shannon: 19, Cerebral Palsy - muscle will not extend; mild longitudinal paralysis on right side; walks with a limp; born 24 wks prematurely minor brain damage and lung deficiency
Hospitalised: Operation for tendon release/ graft
RDA Grade: 3.
Horse: Ariel

Lizbeth: 17, early onset Multiple Sclerosis; suffers bad fatigue, nausea, muscle cramps, dizziness balance problems; certain body parts go numb; mobility and vision problems
Hospitalised: treatment of Optic Neuritis (treated with methylprednisolone/steroids), morphine for pain
RDA Grade: 3.
Horse: Razzie

Alena: 16, Sacral Agenesis: club foot and leg (right); horse-shoe kidney, neurogenic bladder (kidney infections; sublaxative joints
Hospitalised: treatment of peritonitis: gentamicin, fluids, catheter, nasal gastric tube remove to all pressure from peritoneum
RDA Grade: 4
Horse: Luce

Minor
Luke: 17, severe depression
Hospitalised: depression treatment post attempted suicide

Clarisse: 16, anorexia and bulimia
Hospitalised: counselling and weight rehabilitation

John: Lizbeth's father

Michael: Shannon's brother


Prologue - Alena, Shannon, Lizbeth
Alena -
work hard, work harder, work hardest. Maybe you'll get what you've wanted for so long

Shannon -
Doesn't matter how much it hurts, doesn't matter how much your body doesn't want to do it, override it. If you want it bad enough - it doesn't matter.

Lizbeth -
We do this for the love of the sport, not the fame. There are no parades for us, no money. We defy the very nature of our disability to prove we're just as good as you who look down on us.

So let us out of this sterile world. Let us overcome ourselves, let us fight for what we want; we're battle-proven and have the scars to prove it.

We want the crowds, the blinding lights. We want to stand on the podium and hold that gold medal up to the world and show that the pain, the hospital trips, the medications and everything we've been through were worthwhile and
so
are
we.

Get us away from this white. Give us the Gold.
We want to shine.
Citius, Altius, Fortius


Alena - Intro
God I'm over this.
Two days gone already. May I rip my hair out now
or anyone's head off, if they get too close?

Yes, I'm being grumpy.
Yes, I know that.
No, I'm probably not going to stop acting like a prat;
at least not until my anger and boredom levels go down.

Poor nurses; not their fault -
feel sorry for them, really I do.
So many other people to worry about
and they're stuck with me.

I think I should clear something up:
I'm not usually this foul tempered,
it's just that right now isn't a... convenient
time to be here... all that training and prep time... lost...
Screw this stupid malfunctioning body of mine. Fuckitall.

Oops! Here comes the nurse.
Mid-day obs all round people!
Okay, check your temper, Lee.
I smile at her. "Hey." She looks downright shocked.
Guess I've made a really big impression in the last 48 hours and
surprisingly, anger and boredom seem to have run their course.
There will, though, be penance for this.

Shannon - Intro
White room? Check.
White walls? Check.
White tiles? Check.

Bed? White.
Sheets? White.
Pillow? White.
Curtains? White.

White jodhpurs.
White shirt.
White stock.
White saddlecloth.
White gloves...
Hang on, where did all that go?
Yeah. Hospital's a horse-free zone...
Such is life.


Lizbeth - Intro
Painfuzzinessouch!
Damnthathurts! The white here makes it hard to tell everything apart.
Still, at least I can see some of it, blurry as it is.

Could do with some colour though,
it would distract me from these multiple pains in my eye.
Bright, deep red... no chestnut!
Ah Razzie, my beautiful girl, I miss you!
That's what I love... I ... I don't have to be able to see her,
I can feel her. I can talk to her through therhythm of a pace.

The smooth floating motion.
The flying.
Freedom.

My god that hurts.
I'm going to lie down and
rest for a while.





Lizbeth - Visits
I like visits.
I like the normality.
Being temporarily blind,
hospital can be a very dull place.
"The horror, the horror!" I laugh to myself.
Being blind takes out reading, TV,
drawing and playing games;
seriously limits the entertainment factor
so having someone to talk to is great,
I love the interaction.

John - Visiting
I know she enjoys it when
someone comes to visit.
That's why I come every day
if I can.
People think it's odd that I come
to visit my 17-year-old daughter - she's more
than capable of looking after herself - they say.
They're right too. Liz is just fine by herself,
but she gets bored.
So I go in and chat and tell her all about home,
and how much Razzie is missing her.
Every day I tap quietly down the ward,
open the door and she's already sitting up
waiting for me.
"Hey Dad, I heard you coming." She smiles.
I know she enjoys visits.
It's one of the only times
she smiles.

Shannon - Home Away from Home
I'm all set up.
My clothes are in the drawers.
My pillow is on the bed.
A picture of my Ariel on the cabinet.
My corner of the room,
discreetly personalised.

I know where everything
is now:
bathroom, left side of the doorway;
wreck room, far end of the ward on the right;
kitchen, opposite end in the middle
(my section of the fridge is all good to go).

People wonder how I can be so comfortable
in hospital - they give other people the creeps apparently,
so I tell them, "This is my second home." They look at me
like I'm mad. "No, seriously I spend a lot of time here, so I'm
comfortable." And I always make new friends. Home isn't as painful
as here, that's the main difference. They shake their heads
and you can see them wondering about my mental stability. Oh well...
I guess it's something you have to live to understand.

Alena- Roommate
A semi-private room -
just two people - so we get to know each other pretty fast.

Her name is Clarisse.
She's lightning-bolt-bright,
fast and erratic too.

And beautiful

even with all her bones sticking out
like jagged rocks and
her skin a sallow pasty colour
sucked in around the rocks.
I could see that before she got sick
she would have been stunning...
One of those people who roll out of bed,
hair a mess, in holey sweats
and still looking gorgeous.
She has the personality to match -
quiet and outrageous and loud -
when you get her going and
a sense of humour that is as quick
as it is deadly for anyone who was been ambushed by it -
which is rare.
It's a shame, she was funny.

And she always smiled
when the nurses came and watched her eat;
when two hours later she would pace around the ward
working it all off;
even when she faced down the old nurse
who's been in the business for years, she still wore her smile.

I've only seen it dip once - the day her mother came.
I saw terror, right before
a blank hollow mask filtered across her face.
It didn't leave for the next couple of days... and even then
something new was wrong.


Luke - Life's a Bitch.
Life's a cliché
and then you die.
My letter to the world was a big "Fuck you!" written in blood.
One problem... someone brought me back...

You'd think if you put all that effort into it,
people would get the message that that's how you want to stay.

But no, some Samaritan I've never met
dragged me back into my body,
called an ambo
and they carted me here.
White Hell.

Two months, that's how long I've been here,
with bandages up to my freaking armpits
and still feeling that flinging myself off a bridge
is a damned good idea.

Want to know the question
at the heart of my internal debate?
What is there to live for? If you have nothing
and no one, then what in the world do you live for?

And you know what? No one can give me an answer.


Alena- windows
Every day I sit in the wide window sill
in the rec room at the end of the ward.
I soak up vitamin D and
try not to think how good it would be to be out there
feeling it for myself,
instead of getting it filtered through a sheet of glass.
It somehow feels like the pane is tainting it.
What I wouldn't give to be out there,
working hard with Luce till it hurt so much that
it transmogrified into pure bliss.
Instead I'm here in this arctic white room

hooked to tubes;
miles away from anything remotely like
what I love - I want my horses.

I have to go.
As I meander back to my cubicle of a room
I notice a boy.
His hunched shoulders tell me
we're both depressed.
Both alone.


Luke - Sunshine Girl. (Alena)
Every day she pulls the monitors
with all those tubes that lace over her skin,
so many she almost sparkles
with the light reflecting off them.
Every day she sits in the window sill
and leans against it like she's trying
to push through that pane of glass.

She'll close her eyes and be still.
I see her breathing as if
she can smell the outside,
but I don't think it's what's just on the
other side of the glass;
I think it's a million miles away
where the air is clear
(not this filtered crap
that comes through the air-con).
She's used to being outside, you can see it
in her skin. It's the kind of tan
built over years.
You can see it in the way her body
tilts towards the outside world
and, most importantly, you can see it in her face,
slanted to the sun, it's almost happy...
She stays there for hours,
lost in whatever her mind has made.
Then there's a small cringe
that shifts her body and
she stands up and walks away,
pulling those monitors and
tubes that tattoo her skin with her.
She looks up and smiles absently at me
before shuffling away,
subdued.

Shannon - Talks.
Doctors came today
to talk me through the surgery.
Might as well have been speaking Latin:
the Extensor Digitorum Longus
will be grafted onto
the Extensor Digitorum Brevis
which will be transferred over
to sit on top of the Peroneus Brevis,
all said while pointing to different parts of my leg.
My brother Michael just nods.
When they've finished with their language lesson
and leave I ask, "Did you get any of that?"
"Nope," he answers and grins.
"Great," I grimace. Mike laughs.
"Guess you'll have to trust them then, sis,
cya in a couple of days okay.
I'll be there for the countdown."
"You better be," I call after him
as he saunters down the hall.

Lizbeth - Coffee Break
Dad leads me down the echoing hall.
Sound bounces off everything
making it hard for me to keep track
of where each sound begins. It's as if
the world broke and only left fragments behind.
I grab Dad's hand tight. "It's okay, Liz,"
he says soothingly, only it's distorted by the echoes.
"Yeah right," I mutter, "let's get to the café."

Ten long minutes later the rich,
slightly pungent smell
of the café wafts towards me. Yum.

Alena - Stick 'em up
Cannula broke last night.
Woke up this morning in a bed
stained like a cup of red merlot
had been poured over white sheets.

Nurse Bell. He gasps as he pulls back
the curtain. "Sweet Jesus!"
"Nope," I grin "just a useless needle and
a busted vein." Trying hard not to look
at the stainless steel point, protruding from
the crook of my elbow,
"Would you mind taking it out?
It's... uncomfortable."

He has blanched and is staring at my arm.
"I thought you were used to blood and gore?"
"You don't see this everyday. I'll get the doctor."
"Thanks." I smile politely while simultaneously grinding my teeth.

Ten minutes later, Dr. James Delacour walks in,
no relation to Fleur if you're into Harry Potter,
but just as beautiful he boasts. "Hey Lena!
Busted another vein?" he asks incredulously.
"Sure have," I grin.
"How many is this in the fortnight?" he asks wearily.
"Six, I think."
"Good Lord," he sighs. "Alright
stick 'em up."
I surrender my arms to him.
"Be nice," I growl.
"All done," he snickers.
"Rat bag," I mutter.
" See you in a couple of days."
"Why!" I ask alarmed.
"Because you'll have busted another vein, silly!" He laughs
as he walks off waving. I look down at my new
appendage and let out a startled laugh at the
smiley face drawn on the tape across my arm.
"Rat bag," I giggle.

Luke - Boy meets Girl
Illuminated in the sunshine,
she positively glows,
lost in her own world on the other side of that pane.
She looks so beautiful; framed in the windowsill.
I want to say hello, but I'm afraid.
(Deep breath) I walk into the rec room.
"Hi," I breathe quietly; she turns around.
"Hey," she says casually, yet she also seems bewildered.
I'm a little surprised too,
I've seen how she acts towards the staff.
I smile at this apparent juxtaposition in her personality.
"I'm Luke," holding out my hand from ingrained manners.
"Alena, and you'll have to use the other hand."
She shows her bandaged hand with a flourish.
I'm horrified.
"Oh shit! Sorry!" Three words - three octaves.
Now I'm mortified.
"No stress," she laughs, taking my other hand and shaking it.
"Uh... I was going to ask to join you... but ... I think I'll leave."
Embarrassment rising, she must think I'm an idiot.
"Please sit, enjoy the sunshine," she smiles and I find myself smiling too,
but feeling awful, I try to apologise again. "Sorry."
She brushes it off, "Don't worry, its fine."
"Okay," I breathe a sigh of relief.

Suddenly throwing myself off a bridge isn't such
an alluring idea anymore.

Alena - Girl meets Boy
Sunlight again.
It's beautiful here in my windowsill
I can almost smell the hay and leather of home.
Shuffling footsteps approach;
the gentle scrape of socks against carpet.
"Hi," a soft voice speaks; a hint of long forgotten happiness
still lingers in the sound.
I turn, intrigued, to find the boy with the hunched shoulders
and bandages up his arms.
The forgotten happiness of his voice
is absent in his face.
"Hey," I say, surprised that my tone isn't waspish.
He looks surprised too; maybe he's heard my reputation.
A tentative smile begins; it's disturbing the difference it makes.
"I'm Luke," he says and holds out his hand
"Alena," I reply, "you'll have to use the other hand."
"Oh shit! Sorry!" he almost squeaks.
"No stress," I laugh and shake his warm, calloused hand;
rather like the boy himself.
"I was going to ask to join you, but I think I'll leave."
He looks like someone's about to take an iron bar to him.
"Please sit, enjoy the sunshine," I smile.
He sits with a small upturn to his mouth.
"Sorry," he apologises again.
"Don't worry, it's fine."
"Okay," he subsides.

It's wasn't until that night I realised he had made me smile.
Luke had made me laugh.

Claire - Emptiness
I could tell you exactly when this happened,
when this obsession started.
I was going to the beach with friends.
I walked down to the kitchen to pack some snacks
when Mum walked in. She looked me up and down
then continued doing whatever she was doing for a few minutes.
Then, "Claire, I think you need to put on another swim-suit.
Your butt is almost falling out of that one; you must have put on weight."

Bombshell.

I run up to my bedroom and stare into the mirror, twisting around to see what Mum saw.
Miserable, I head off to meet my friends, I ask them how I look;
they laugh and say I'm fine
and yet I can't shake Mum's words...

I had to lose weight.
More diet and more exercise.
I pushed and pushed myself. I only lost a few kilos!
Forget restricting meals; start missing them... hunger pangs.
Simple solution: eat then get rid of it before it becomes fat.
Blissfully, I imagined the numbers going down on the scales...
Until I looked in the mirror and saw fat everywhere. It was disgusting.
I was disgusting.
Nine months I tortured my body.
In the time it takes to give birth to life, I almost destroyed mine:
5' 5", 16yrs and 34kgs.
I couldn't see anything wrong with me other than
still being fat.
It wasn't until I collapsed at school and had some sort of seizure
that anyone realised. Lifting me up they all felt my bones
and rang an ambulance
and Mum.

That aching emptiness is still there.
I'm glad the nurses watch me.
I want to get better.
I'm also glad that Alena is here.
She took over from the nurses and it feels better
having a friend watch you.
She also gives me strength to fight
against the voice that says, "You're ugly."

That gaping abyss is still there every morning
when I look in the mirror.
Alena will walk in and stand beside me in the exact same position,
shirt pulled up to expose her stomach.
She pushes it out. "And you think you got problems!" she laughs.
"You're beautiful," I smile back and she drops her shirt back down
and hugs me, bones and all.
"You are too, silly."
I'm starting to believe it and every time we do our morning ritual
that chasm recedes a little.
The emptiness isn't quite so deep.

Alena - Hurt
The steady throb of my pulse
spikes.
Each little beat
explodes.
Internal shrapnel.

I keep hitting the pain relief button
knowing my quota of morphine has gone
but I can't help it.

I remember finally feeling
the morphine trickling into my bloodstream -
instantaneous relief.

What I hate most about pain
is not that it hurts, but that it
makes you miserable
and not just you but everyone around you...
Family,
friends...

I'm not the only one
who suffers.

Shannon - Countdown.
The time is now
and Michael is nowhere to be seen!
I'm freaking out, slightly,
he's always here for countdown.

I've been prepped,
white gown, nil by mouth,
IV drip and emla patches.
I'm ready to go - and he's still not here.

10... 9... 8... cold steel table,
glaring white lights and a clear plastic mask.
7... 6... vision blurring, lights dancing
time slows down.
5... 4... a squeeze. "Hey lil sis,
sorry I'm late."
3... 2... He's here, he came.
I relax into the table
...I... cast off
into oblivion.


Lizbeth - Who said drugs are bad for you?

Whoever said drugs were bad for you
obviously wasn't disabled.
I don't think I could function without my methylprednisolone
and you know what's funny? That's the absolute truth:
I could not function.
The dizzy spells, the nausea,
the co-ordination problems and the blindness
that comes with every relapse of demyelination.

The really entertaining thing, though?
I'm on steroids, right?
And yet I don't get blasted when the sporting drug test comes around.
I bet a couple of the able-bodied athletes would like that excuse:
"It wasn't performance enhancing drugs, it was for my MS!"
I'm laughing so much
that I don't pay attention and
smack into the wall.Ow! Jesus Christ! That hurts!
And that there is the bitch.
The able-bodied athletes
might not be able to get away with drugs
but then again they don't have to be stuck here
in blackness that is white.

Shannon - Coming to
Sounds slowly drip into my consciousness,
shadows flicker through my eyelids.
My feet feel 10 feet away from my head
and nothing is processing properly,
the world returns in increments.
Feeling returns with a feral passion
that sears up my legs.
With a moan my eyes shudder open.
Michael's face is the first thing I see.
"What's wrong, lil sis?" His face is worriedly creased.
"Pain," I mumble as my hand creeps around the sheets.
The bed shifts and cool plastic is placed in my hand
"Here you go, Shan."
"Thanks bro," I smile as the analgesic floats through my bloodstream.
Six months rehab. I'm sorry but that bites.
Six months of learning how to balance,
to stand, to walk and run.
At least two months before I can get back in the saddle
on my sweet Ariel.

Alena, Shannon and Lizbeth - Life as me
I sometimes feel like
Mr Jekyll and Dr Hyde:
two compartments of my life
that can't and won't co-exist.
It's just like the English and Irish settlers
who couldn't be together without clashing.

Normal life and hospital life
both keep going even when I'm not there.
There are gaps I can't retrieve.

Only one place exists where both can abide and that's
on a horse.
I'm normal and disabled
and no one knows the difference.

But there is a place where I can be
the person I am.
A place of my own -
where I'm not disabled,
not normal but
extraordinary.

Is it stupid or funny or sensible to plan for an event
that might never happen?
There's no guarantee I'll make it
to WEG* next year, no promises I'll be
good enough.

But what would I give to be part of
history,
to be remembered as one who won gold?

It won't be a fairytale, I know that.
It'll be hard work and a shit-load of pain,
but then so is all my life.
I want people to remember my life
all of it, good, bad and in-between.
I want them to understand, what it's like to live
my life as me.







* WEG - World Equestrian Games